Archives: minds on

As we begin our Shakespearean unit, and the exploration of his play Macbeth, it is apropos for us to explore what we know already and where we might want to go during this period of learning.

Do you rememebr the beginning of the semester when I asked you what English meant to you and the term ‘Shakespeare’ dominated our board? Why was this the first name that came to your mind? What do you know about Shakespeare?

Add to the Padlet below with your thoughts. What do you know about Shakespeare? Add how you know what you share as well – you can do this by stating the source specifically in brackets or by adding an image or video to your comment.

Your challenge: ask one student, one teacher / administrator, and one family member what they know about Shakespeare and add their comment (or a video of them making their comment) here on the board.

On Friday, I asked you what ‘English’ meant to you. Tomorrow we will start the period with a ‘Gallery Walk’ where you will review your thoughts and those of other tables. Collectively in all 3 classes, you generated 237 words and phrases that represent ‘English for you’. I dictated all of you thoughts into my iPad and pasted them into http://www.tagxedo.com/ to create a Word Cloud. Words that are larger and bolder are those that appeared most often and those little words are the ones that showed up only a few times (or maybe even once). Here is what ‘English’ means to you…

Visiting on an iPhone, iPad or any other iOS device? If you are, then the space above where the tag cloud is will be blank.
Click HERE to see the image.

What themes emerged? Are there any surprises?

What dimensions or categories are missing from our maps? Again, any surprises?

Do you see anything in the thoughts of others that you might not have thought of or might expand on your ideas of ‘English’ as a class or discipline of study?

Reply to this post by clicking the ‘Reply’ button and signing in with your HWDSB username and password. Which of these components of ‘English’ do you most enjoy and how do you enjoy to learn them? Share an activity or lesson that really engaged you. What did you like most about it and how did it help you with your learning?

Welcome to our English class! I’m excited to learn alongside you this semester. I’d also like to know before we get going what you think about when you hear the word ‘English’, when you see it on your timetable, or when your friends or family ask you, “What do you have this semester?”, and you say, “this, that and ‘English'”. I know that I’m not teaching you how to speak English but, beyond that, I don’t know what your perception is of the course before we begin. During this ‘Post-it Note Pile-Up’ exercise I would like you (individually), and then together as a table group, to brainstorm your thoughts of what you believe ‘English’ to be and then, as a class, chunk them into categories that represent the theme of each note. Once you have identified the main themes of what you believe ‘English’ to be we’ll have a discussion about how we can create our experience together. Remember, this is our class, not mine. You will design our journey as much as I do and I look forward to being your partner in the process.